Women's Action for New Directions

Women's Action for New Directions or WAND is a progressive national nonprofit organization that seeks to empower women to act politically to reduce violence and militarism and redirect excessive military resources toward unmet human and environmental needs.

History

In her travels in the early 1980s, anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott often received the call: “We must start a women’s party!”. Heeding this she founded the Women's Party for Survival, organized around a kitchen table in Cambridge, MA. Soon realizing the difficulty of taking on the entrenched two-party American system, WAND was founded in 1982 as Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament.[1]

Organizational Structure

STAND

Students Take Action for New Directions was founded by 13 young women at WAND's 1999 biennial WAND/WiLL national conference. It works to encourage young women to become politically active, to vote, to network with other young WAND members and with WiLL members, and to become activists working toward WAND's goals.

WiLL

Women Legislators'Lobby is a non-partisan network of female state legislatures who are members of WAND. Nan Grogan Orrock is the current president of WiLL. In 2003, WAND founded Trailblazers, a network that seeks to use the contacts and influence of former legislators to continue to influence national priorities and foreign policy issues.

WAND Education Fund

WAND Education fund is WAND's tax-deductible arm. The Education fund works to achieve the organizations goals through educating the public and opinion leaders about the organizations issues.

WAND PAC

WAND PAC is a political action committee of WAND members that supports members who are running for the United States Congress. To donate to WAND PAC you must be a member of WAND. In the PAC's early years WAND endorsed and donated to non-members that supported the organizations goals. However, with the increase in members running for office in the 1990s WAND decided to concentrate resources solely on their members running for office.

Local Chapters

WAND has chapters in all regions of the country.

Affiliated Organizations

WAND works to build relationships with organizations that share similar goals.

References

  1. ↑ Sheldon, Sayre (October 2004). "A Brief History of WAND". WAND Education Fund. Retrieved July 26, 2015.


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